Child-Centered Disaster Risk Reduction in South Asia: Basic Concepts

"The understanding that children and young people can evolve from vulnerable individuals to empowered citizens lies at the heart of child-centred DRR."

This publication provides a conceptual framework for child-centred disaster risk reduction (DRR) for and with children, who are disproportionately affected by emergencies. From the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), it is part of their collective efforts to develop capacities of stakeholders in the South Asia region, where children are among the most vulnerable in the world, through learning events that will give practitioners an opportunity to take stock of the situation, identify barriers, flag good practice, discuss operational challenges, and enter new alliances. The goal is to contribute to safeguarding the rights of all children in South Asia. The paper describes 4 approaches to reducing child vulnerabilities including: child-centred risk assessments, safeguarding child infrastructure, protecting children in emergencies, and social protection for children. It also presents 4 approaches to enhancing child capacities including participatory action, life skills education, school safety, and partnerships. The concluding chapter examines child-centred DRR from the perspective of the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030.

Child-centred DRR is linked to community-based DRR through participation and can broadly be defined as DRR for and with children. It embraces the 4 principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including (i) non-discrimination, (ii) the best interests of the child, (iii) the right to life, survival, and development, and (iv) the view of the child. According to a Children in a Changing Climate Research report from 2011, child-centred DRR needs to cover both child-sensitive and participatory policy and programming: (i) Child-sensitive policy and programming responds to the needs of children as recipients or beneficiaries. (ii) Participatory policy and programming where children are actively engaged in decision-making, planning, and accountability processes for prevention, preparedness, and response. This includes child-led DRR, where children are supported to be lead agents of change in their spheres of influence - household, school, community, and beyond. A number of global DRR campaigns have highlighted the importance of child-centred DRR; Table 3 on page 11 provides a chronological overview of the titles of some of these campaigns and the links to additional information.

The following sections of the paper highlight 4 types of interventions that contribute to reducing child vulnerabilities in relation to disaster risk and climate change. (1) Child-centred risk assessments help measure, visualise, and understand child risks in order to factor them into risk-informed planning. The assessment process consists of the following 6 steps: (i) Collect and analyse hazard data, while taking climate change into consideration. If unavailable, develop a multi-hazard map based on past disaster records, current hazard zoning, and future climate change scenarios. (ii) Collect and analyse child vulnerability data, based on a range of child deprivation indicators and an assessment of the reliability of the available data. (iii) Collect and analyse demographic data of the child population with breakdown in age and gender groups. (iv) Collect and analyse capacities based on a range of welfare indicators and an assessment of the reliability of the available data. (v) Calculate risk levels by merging the available data sets and assigning weights to individual indicators and components. (vi) Draw risk maps illustrating the findings of the assessment. (2) Safeguarding critical infrastructure for children and (3) protecting children in emergencies aim at reducing the exposure and vulnerability of buildings, lifelines, families, and children. (4) Social protection contributes to transferring disaster risk away from the most vulnerable groups in society, including the families of economically poor children. Each of the 4 sections begins with a brief presentation of the rationale for the intervention followed by good practice and, whenever available, examples from South Asia.

The following sections hone in on children's capacities and ways to enhance them, including:

• Participatory action - Barriers to participation in South Asia include cultural norms and social exclusion. Creating scope for children to take part in interventions that relate to them, such as DRR and climate change adaptation (CCA), is the responsibility of parents, adults, and duty-bearers. Once children become active participants, it becomes the responsibility of adults and duty-bearers to support them in executing child-centred DRR and CCA. It is important to understand that children are not a homogenous group. Age, gender, and (dis)abilities are key features that determine their vulnerabilities and capacities. SAARC's 2011 Framework for the Care, Protection and Participation of Children in disasters recognises the value of involving children in DRR by embracing participation as one of its ten priorities for action. Collective learning and empowerment through focus group discussions (FDGs), community mapping, participatory videos, drawing competitions, educational songs, social theatre, and public debates have characterised child-centred DRR interventions in the region. While some actions focus on protecting children and their communities, other actions aim at influencing peers, parents, and duty-bearers and ultimately transforming their environment. According to the paper, the most positive experiences from community-based and child-centred DRR include participatory hazard-vulnerability-capacity assessments and risk management action plans. The spread of cellphones, the internet, and social media to practically every village, town, and community in South Asia has created new opportunities to pursue participatory action and exchanges. Illustration 4 on page 22 presents various levels of child agency and potential impacts. Apart from the immediate benefits in children's lives and communities at risk, children are likely to take the acquired knowledge and skills with them into later life.
• Life skills education - Behaviour change is an important aspect of DRR and CCA. While participatory action addresses the process of learning, life skills education deals with the contents. Teaching children practical life skills can stimulate human development and helped children cope with disasters. One programme in Bangladesh showed an 80% reduction in drowning deaths among children attending "swim for life" lessons in day care centres, reinforcing the many benefits of early childhood education.
• School safety - Developed by child-centred organisations in Asia, the Comprehensive School Safety framework aims to: protect learners and education workers from death, injury, and harm in schools; plan for educational continuity in the face of all expected hazards and threats; and safeguard education sector investments and to strengthen risk reduction and resilience through education. The 3 pillars of the framework and their interrelations are presented in illustration 5 on page 25. In SAARC's post-2015 DRR roadmap for the region, the organisation adopts the notion of "home-to-home safety", going beyond safety within the school premises. The goal of all education sector initiatives is to ensure that national education policies, plans, and programmes become risk-informed and that educational departments and schools pay adequate attention to natural and man-made hazards in view of local peculiarities.
• Partnerships - Preventing disasters requires public and private agencies to work together across traditional boundaries. The examples on page 26 present 2 types of DRR partnerships that have demonstrated their value in the region. The Children in a Changing Climate Coalition was initially a global alliance of child-centred organisations working on DRR and climate change that has mushroomed to regional and national levels in a number of South Asian countries. The Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium is a country-specific partnership backed by international agencies. Both partnerships have the potential to be replicated at the regional level and in towns, sub-national regions, and the national level in individual countries.

As the closing chapter in the publication outlines, the Sendai framework for DRR 2015-2030 incorporates key features of child-centred DRR. Not only does it favour participation of all of society, it also sees children and youth as agents of change. The Sendai Framework proposes integration of a gender, age, disability, and cultural perspective into policies and practices and calls for disaggregated data, including by sex, age, and disability. It supports inclusive social protection systems and accessible social services, including child health, nutrition, and education. Table 4 on page 28 shows how well the 8 approaches of child-centred DRR detailed above contribute to the 4 priority actions of the Sendai Framework and vice versa. The following 3 concluding statements summarise and reiterate why child-centred DRR in South Asia needs to be scaled up, according to this publication:

1. "Children and child rights must be factored into DRR and CCA in South Asia in order to take population figures, special needs, legal obligations and policy support into consideration...
2. Child-centred DRR is an evolving concept that offers a good starting point for governments and communities in South Asia to effectively scale up DRR and CCA...
3. Coping with disaster and climate risks in South Asia calls for new partnerships at all levels to successfully counter the challenge..."